


The Stage Is Set

by Ma_Kir



Category: Live a Live
Genre: Live a Live - Freeform, Lucretia - Freeform, demon king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:38:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10849452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ma_Kir/pseuds/Ma_Kir
Summary: Oersted, now the Demon King Odio, sets the stage of his ultimate moral play: assembling a cast of the damned and making a wasteland out of the kingdom of Lucretia.





	1. Chapter 1

Alicia, Princess of Lucretia, stabs the knife into her breast, grief and malice filling her heart at the anguished expression on Oersted's face as she falls on top of the corpse of Straybow. Oersted will never know how this feels. His entire life, one of privilege and honour, freedom and achievement: he is perfect. She was right. She knows it. Oersted doesn't know what it is like to be weak, to subjected to the whims of others, to have nothing but your father's name. Alicia, for all of her father's benign intentions, was always just a trophy for a male heir who would inherit her father's kingdom instead of her. 

She hadn't minded. Not at first. Between her father's well-wishes for Lucretia and the machinations of the Chancellor, she was the perfect Princess for a real hero. And she loved Oersted's power. He was everything that she expected and beyond. Strong. Handsome. Good. And perfect. It was natural for her to accept him: to love his deeds, his heroism, his choices for the good of the kingdom and her father's love and endorsement. It made perfect sense. 

Her mind is dimming, as her cheek falls on Straybow's blood-slicked traveler's robe. Straybow. He was everything that Oersted was not. Physically weaker. Darker. More caustic than good-natured. He wielded a staff and the powers of the mystic Arts. In their tournament, he never had a chance against his friend. Alicia had pitied him. But, deep down, she realized it was more than pity. It was sympathy. Everything had been stacked against them, the two of them, from the very beginning. Oersted came from a good family, had the training, had the natural physical strength and, for a time, the love of the people. Watching Straybow lose when he had come so far in combat to win her hand, seeing him swallow his pride like bile, and try to accept his friend's victory as he must have so many times before -- just as she had swallowed her own tongue when the Chancellor or her father proclaimed her hand to another as was expected of her, or to other courtly duties without so much as her say-so -- made her understand him, if nothing else.

Then the Demon Lord had taken her, and Oersted ... Oersted who had claimed his love for her, as she had out of duty, of respecting the qualities expected of her to love, left her. Hadn't found her. But it was worse than that. He had come for her. But he had given up. He'd left, and only came back here to ... reaffirm his own sense of being a hero. A built-up hero. She would confirm his story, the hero story that starred only him, like all of the fairytales and then what? Straybow had made this clear when he'd come for her. When he told her of her father's death, of how the people turned on their beloved hero the moment they knew. It was never about her. And Straybow had known defeat. He fought Oersted, the usurper, the one who abandoned her, the one who killed her father, the one who knew even more than that about how she despised her father and the chancellor's role for her, and the fickleness of the people and their ideals of heroism and good and against all odds took great power and held his own ... only for his friend to humiliate him again and cut him down right in front of her. 

Oersted is perfect, even with blood on his hands -- perhaps even more so -- but he never understood her. And, now, he never will. Not when she is joining Straybow, her beloved Straybow, in the darkness: leaving the false beauty and self-righteousness of Oersted, and Lucretia and the world behind them ...


	2. Chapter 2

"No ... Oersted ..."

"That is not my name, traitor. Not anymore."

Alicia feels herself get pulled, ripped, out of the darkness. It's the voice. It is harsh, and jagged. The Princess gasps, with non-existent lungs, as light -- unforgiving, painful light -- sears into her very being. The looming figure of a Demon hangs over her. It takes her a moment to realize that it's not the Demon Lord that stole her or the Demon King that all Lucretians had been afraid of for some long before the advent of the heroes Hash and Uranus. No, it is a statue. A familiar armored statue over an entrance way into a mountain. Into the Mountain. 

She can't move. Alicia can't move. She tries but all she can do is look around the desolate mountaintop: from the very place from which she thought she had fled with ...

"Straybow?"

Alicia looks at a ragged figure kneeling on the ground. He is translucent and pale, like a white shadow of a human being. His face is twisted in fear and agony. He is looking at her. It is Straybow.

"... Alicia ..." He says. "No. Oersted. Please. You've beaten me. You ... killed me. Don't do this. Leave her out of it ..."

There is cold laughter. "But Straybow, my old friend, I wouldn't deprive you of the person you betrayed our friendship, my life, over. It wouldn't do to bring you back, here, without being reunited with ... your love."

That is when Alicia notices someone standing in front of the cave under the statue of the Demon King. The shadows give way to ... a man. He still has golden blond hair, but it seems unbearably pale. His armour, gilded and beautiful, burns with molten fire. But his eyes. It's his eyes that are completely different. They blaze. They blaze with a cold fury, infinite malice, and pure, unadulterated hatred. 

"...Oersted ..." Alicia feels her soul grow heavy and cold.

"Oersted is dead, Princess Alicia." The man growls, quietly, the rumbling of his voice reverberating through the rocks of the mountain. "I am the Demon. I am just what the villagers called me. What the Palace proclaimed me. I am the Demon King. I am Odio." 

"L-let ..." She starts. "Let us go. You won. You took everything. Y-you killed my father. You killed Straybow. I left you. You-you are disgusting to me." Somehow, Alicia's anger feels subdued in front of the other. "Let me go ..."

For a few moments, Oersted's eyes narrow into pinpoints of flame. They seem to pierce right into her. Then, a cold smirk forms on the corners of his lips.

"Do you want to tell her, Straybow? Or should I?"

Alicia wants to shrink back from that smile. It feels tipped with venom. "T-tell me what ..."

Straybow is shaking his shaggy head. Orested sighs.

"Actually, I think the truth will sound better coming from you, old friend."

Oersted holds up a gauntleted fist. Straybow begins to scream. His faded form regains some colour. His hands are clutching at his mouth. At his throat. His eyes squeeze shut but his mouth begins to move. 

"S-stop it!" Alicia calls out, horrified. "Stop hurting him!"

Oersted doesn't meet her eyes, focusing his eyes on Straybow's levitating, struggling form. "It's nothing your royal guards hadn't done to me or Uranus. Just tell the truth, Straybow. I know how much you want to brag about this."

"I ... I triggered the traps." Straybow breathes out. 

"... what?" Alicia doesn't understand. What is Straybow talking about?

"... at the altar ..." Straybow says. "After Hash died. I sealed the entrance to the Mountain. I faked my own death ..."

Alicia shakes her head, somehow finally that she still can. "I don't understand. Orested, what are you trying to make him say? What is this nonsense?"

Oersted holds a finger to his lips. "Straybow is being humble. He gave me a far more elaborate performance before, when you were in the chamber. Tell her, Straybow."

"I ... I." The wizard looks at her with wide, pleading eyes. "I figured out the secrets of the chamber. I realized the power of the Demon King. I ... I unlocked the power in the chamber and the statues. I increased my strength. I never ... held such power before. Never knew ... it existed. ... could only cast elemental spells before, but now ..." 

"Get to the good part, Straybow."

"Alicia ..." He pleads. "Remember how I told you Orested never loses. He knew what it was like to lose ... I wanted to teach him a lesson. I saw the power in the Mountain. I was afraid of it ... at first. It toyed with my emotions. Made me see things that weren't there. All of us ... it made me see more though. It made me look deep into myself. I ... I was jealous of him. Of always being shown up by him. I wanted ... I wanted to win. 

"Oersted ... always thought he saw the right way. Followed ... the right path. So narrow. I wanted ... I wanted to show him exactly what he wanted to see. I saw him in the room with the statues. I cast an illusion. I made him see the Demon King. And then ... in the Palace he ... he ... he ... he saw your father and ..."

"No." Alicia says, quietly. "No. Oersted. What are you doing? Why are you making him say this? Why are you ... why are you making him lie?"

Oersted says nothing but continues looking at Straybow.

"I hated him. I hated him so much Alicia. I wanted him to lose everything. I wanted the people to see him for what he was. Something that couldn't relate to any of them. To life. To love. I wanted him to see how fickle they were. That Hash was right. I wanted to break him, Alicia. I wanted the people he fought for to turn on him and kill him. And if not, I wanted to make him see all the dark parts of himself assail his mind. And I ... I, god help me, I enjoyed it. When he came back here. I ripped through his mind with my illusions. And I knew ... I knew he needed someone, anyone, to believe in him. And I knew ... I knew even if my great power couldn't humble him, crush him, you ... you would. My ... my Alicia ..." 

"No ..." Alicia wants to back away from the wizard. "This ... this can't be true. Stop it, Oersted. Stop ..."

"Why don't you tell Alicia how you really feel about her, Straybow."

"I ... I ... I ..." Straybow's mouth works several times. "You ... you were beautiful. And powerful. You were the king's daughter. You ... were perfect. You are perfect. With you, I would show Orested, once and for all, who the real hero, the real man was in Lucretia." Tears flow down Straybow's cheeks. "With your father gone, I would be the king and you would be ... be mine ... with the power of the Demon King I would rule ... rule over ..."

Alicia begins shaking. She wants to vomit, but she knows she has no stomach anymore, no body. Straybow lied to her ... he told her Oersted abandoned her, just wanted her for his status and his delusions of heroism, that he loved her, that they had something in common. "No ... no ... no no no no ... stop. Please. Please stop."

Orested lowers his hand. Straybow lowers to the ground. "I ... I'm sorry Alicia. I just wanted to beat him. I just wanted to beat him .... just one time ..."

"Stop it ..." She realizes she's crying. 

"I've had some time to think about this." Oersted says in a cold, dry voice. "You were, always, a puppet Alicia. You did what your father told you. What the Chancellor told you. What Straybow told you. You are pathetic."

Alicia can't stop crying. 

"You think that you have suffered? In your garden? In your place of luxury?" Oersted laughs. "Straybow and I, in our time, starved on quests to slay beasts. I jumped in the way of all attackers that would have cut him down back in the day. I took blows that would have ended you. And when I met you, that day, I thought I'd met someone who understood me. Who recognized the work I did for Lucretia and her father. I thought my flowers meant something. I thought our time together meant something. I thought your words of love were real. 

"But all it took were some lies. Just a few lies and you turned on me completely. You might be shallow, Alicia. Beautiful and shallow but my love for you was real. Because I promised you, that day. I promised you that I would protect you. And ... threw my promises, my oaths, my pain, and my suffering right back in my face for a liar and a traitor." 

Alicia wants to hide her face in her hands. "You ... you don't know what it's like ... to be a trophy to be ... gained or lost. You don't know what it's like to lose, Oersted."

Oersted's eyes narrow again. "I didn't know before, it's true. But I do now. Thanks to you, you and my so-called friend. You and my friend and the people of Lucretia. I lost everything." He laughs again. "Oersted was a weak and naive fool that lost everything. Odio rules over nothing. And nothingness is exactly what your kind deserves. But first ... I think I will give you something. Consider it a ... betrothal gift, Alicia, my love."

"You ..." Alicia feels herself levitating into the air. "You are no ... no hero. You ... you failed, Oersted. You or ... whoever, whatever you are now."

"Hmm ... perhaps. Perhaps you're right, Alicia." He replies, tapping the hilt of his sword with one finger. "Perhaps I am a failure as a hero. Perhaps all heroes are failures if they have to serve and protect vermin like you. Like humanity. I wonder ..." He shakes his head. "Maybe we will all get to see what real heroes might look like. But first ... Straybow, you are my best man. You may do the honours."

"No ... no please ..." Straybow staggers to his feet. His staff appears in his hand. He begins to approach Alicia.

"What, Straybow. I understand you are excellent at lies, like all humans, but you reveal the truth so beautifully as well. I understand that, despite everything, you do still love the Princess. So you can give her a going away present. It's your duty as the groom's man."

"Straybow ..." Alicia tries to struggle. "No ... no don't ... don't do this ..."

"Alicia ... I'm ... I'm sorry ..."

She turns to Oersted. "Oersted. You monster ... you utter monster ..."

"You still can't accept it, can you Alicia? Go on, Straybow. Show Alicia. Show her her true self."

Straybow raises his staff. Alicia trembles. Then she begins to waver and shake. Agony rips through her form. She is screaming. She feels her face ripping open. She's screaming. Her eyes gape into hollow sockets. Into holes. She is screaming. Her fingers elongate and rip out into talons. The flesh on her face withers and rots. All the ugliness in her, the resentment, the thoughtless assumptions, fears and thwarted hopes boil out over her very essence. 

"Ah yes ..." She hears Orested say. "So beautiful. So true to what you really are. My beautiful Alicia." Her mind begins to distort and rip apart. All of her thoughts become screaming. Even the tiny part of her that still remembers what it was like to be a weak, fallible human being. Slowly, the nothingness takes away her thoughts. Her face becomes still. The screaming rot dissipates. Her features become smooth. Seamless. At peace. At peace as a part of her is screaming in this beautiful form, this illusion of grace as the vessel of the Demon King's hatred. "Trapped in perfection. My Alicia. My beautiful hypocrite. My beautiful Saint Alicia ..."

The Demon King holds out his hand and her soul, twisted by Straybow's magic, flows into his palm and she dissipates inside of it. Straybow falls to the ground. His staff falls out of his hands. He is sobbing.

"Don't worry, Straybow. I have not forgotten about you. Just as you were my subordinate in life, in death you will also see me surpass you. I was the better warrior. And now, I am a better Demon King than you ever were or will ever be. Come." Odio says, his grin full of loathing and malice. "Let us and our friends on the mountain grace the presence of our new subjects." 

Straybow watches, on the ground, as tides of darkness begin to flow out of the Mountain, traveling downward, through ancient pathways. He knows where they are going. He knows of the places they will pass in their wake. And then Lucretia. And then, the continuance of damnation.


	3. Chapter 3

Straybow saw everything.

Odio's forces consumed the villagers, at first. The outer villages of Lucretia fell quickly. The creatures killed, ravaged, and destroyed every life they could find. But then he got closer to the Palace. To the Castle. Straybow tries to forget in the morass of nightmares that Odio bound him to, with all the screaming souls of the damned: condemning, pleading, sad, and drifting in limbo in the spirit from the flesh in which they were ripped. 

In one village, where they once stopped, whose name long since escaped Straybow's fraying memory, a boy came out to greet Odio. 

"Sir Oersted! Sir Oersted! You came back! The Demon King's forces are here. I knew you weren't him. I knew you weren't the Demon. No one believed me. No one ..."

The boy had flung himself at Oersted's leg. For a few moments, Straybow saw the fire leave his former friend's eyes. They looked hollow and sad. The former knight put his hand down and patted the boy's head. 

"You were the only one who did."

Straybow wanted to look away from the sword blade that decapitated the boy, but Odio wouldn't let him. It was a quick death. The wizard's spirit recalls the dead look in his former friend's eyes before the forges of hatred returned into their depths. That boy was lucky. He had the most painless death, the most mercy, that anyone in Lucretia would earn that day. 

Odio killed the children first. Worse, he made their parents kill them. Then he made them attack one another. Those that remained were consumed by his demons. The villagers were trampled. The soldiers were made to torture their own families, then each other, until they were allowed to die. The Chancellor cowered before Odio, in front of the throne of Lucretia after running out of men throw at him, begging for his life: even offering him the throne.

The Chancellor was thrown into the dungeon where Odio had once been kept. His eventual death had not been clean. 

But the worst, to Straybow's shade, was how Odio himself personally killed his prey. When he didn't cleave them into pieces with his sword and smash them into pulp with his demonic powers, he summoned Saint Alicia. Saint Alicia would appear as the beautiful, celestial, heavenly woman that Straybow knew Odio thought she looked in life and would rip herself apart into the monstrosity he thought she'd become. Hundreds, even thousands of human beings were rendered into masses of gore and horror by the parody of their beloved princess made into the Demon King's slave. And Straybow knew, though he hoped she couldn't, that Alicia felt all of it. 

Straybow, though, wasn't called on to do anything more. He was just forced to see this. To witness the lessons that he taught his former friend become unleashed around him. Eventually, when there was nothing left of the people in Lucretia, when Odio was tired of sitting on its throne, he returned to Hash's cabin. He placed the hero's sword on his grave, his now true grave. It was the one weapon Odio never used when his genocide began. Not even once. He visited various places in the realm, seeing to find or sense something. Then he returned to the statues. At that point, he seemed to have forgotten about Straybow. He let his spirit drift into the twisted version of Lucretia, the nightmare realm that was his subconscious, that was the echo of his slaughter.

And even then, the former wizard could still see it. He could see Odio summoning the power of the chamber and reaching out, out throughout space and time for those who called themselves heroes. For those who defended the innocent and the helpless as he and Straybow had once done. He wanted to see. He wanted to see what they would do here. Perhaps defeat him. Perhaps judge him. Perhaps kill him or be killed by him. It seemed as though Odio were looking for the answer to a question that he had long since forgotten in the remnants of Lucretia and his soul.

And throughout all of this, Straybow only had one question left. He asked himself, over and again, in a seemingly endless loop, over and again ...

"... did I do this ..."


End file.
